She didnt realize that she had let herself fall asleep until the endless field of Chrysanthemum's met her sight. Bulma reprimanded herself in her subconcious mind for allowing Chichi to startle her with nightly horror stories of ancestors past and keeping her up all through the late hours. The field before her calmed her though, the vision bringing back warm and welcome memories of her happy childhood on her father's rice farm.

The flower's soft petals and leaves would brush against her skin faintly as she ran though the fields wild and freely,back at a time when her only worries were what game she would play the next day or if she should finally tell on Chichi for harassing the neighbors pesky cat and blaming it on Bulma.

Faintly wondering why a lost memory would visit her many,many years later, she glanced up at the sky; Tried to think hard if the sky above was blue in her dream or if it was even colored. Bulma knew it was blue, dreamt it was blue, knew that she always dreamed in color, despite every one else's wariness to the thought. She refused to think that in her lone and private sanctuary of her mind, where she was free to be what she wanted to be when she wanted to be was robbed of the simple luxury of blissful hues.

She blinked slowly now, aware of her teal colored hair as it whipped her face softly as the breeze in her dream ruffled past her and swayed the early blooming flowers ahead of her.

But she sensed something. Something was wrong with her paradise and Bulma felt the tightening of her chest as she searched quickly around her, confused because she saw nothing across those endless fields other than the Chrysanthemum buds blowing violently in the now turbulent wind.

Grasping her loose hair in one hand and sheilding her eyes against the wind, she saw him. He was alone, standing silently and proudly against the backdrop of the blowing fields. His sword by his waist sheathed, the Samurai stood with a hand on his hip and the other grasping the hilt of the weapon. Bulma would have moved, would have called out to him, but her eyes soon glued to his face. The angular and cold onyx colored eyes held her attention at bay, with two powerful eyebrows crowning the stone like orbs, she was mesmorized. Dead of night colored hair flaired up above his head, flying wildly in the wind resembled fire and fierce flames.

Opening her mouth to form the words, she stopped. A wide hole from the ground underneath him opened up suddenly, and his stoic eyes widened in surprise as he was caught unprepared.

She never heard him yell as he tumbled down into the dark abyss. The gorgeous stranger in her dreams disappearing just as quickly as he had appeared. And suddenly, maliciously, she wished she was able to hear the sound of his voice as he fell through the deep, dark holes of her mind.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Bulma woke up in a cold sweat, the cotton and lace nightgown she wore stuck to her skin as she flipped the bedsheets off of her and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Her riding gear waited for her draped across a wooden chair adjacent to her bed as she hastily threw it on and reached for a dry wool blanket, stuffing it into a large messenger bag she had bought the night before at the market and running out the door.

Ignoring the loud noises she made and the possible consequences of waking up everyone else at the farm, Bulma ran as fast as she could towards the stables. She remembered that she didnt even put on any slippers as her bare feet pounded against the wet and muddy dirt floor of the wooden stable house.

The sleeping horses awoke from Bulma's violent noises as she untied a black mare from her stable, tied a saddle across her back and jumped on. " Come on, girl." She cooed softly but quickly, leaning forward and whispered into the horses ear. As if understanding, the mare reared back on two legs, whined and sprinted out the farm gates to the dark forest to look for Bulma's stranger.

' He's out there.' She thought,tensely grasping the reigns in her hands. ' I dont know who he is, but he's in trouble and I have to help him.' She cursed out loud as the storming clouds above her split open and the pouring rain pelted her thin outfit.

Her vision was blurred, the darkness of the early morning and severe rainfall prevented Bulma from seeing any farther than twenty feet ahead of her. Around her, the overgrown branches struck her as she quickly rode passed them, her skirt's hem occasionally getting trapped within the trees grasping fingers. Underneath her, she felt the mare's anticipation and nervousness;Suddenly realizing that she must search for the beautiful stranger and find him quick before the horse tires out from exhaustion.

Bulma slowed down the mare's running to a quick gait, the downpour dwindling down to a light drizzle. Touching her tangled and drenched hair, she looked at it in contempt. It would be difficult to brush out the tangles after it dried and frizzed up, her then teal colored hair turned a dark hunter green with the moisture. Sighing and rolling her eyes to herself, she began to wonder if she really felt that some one needed her help or if she was too caught up in the dream to think straight.

Seeing nothing, Bulma shrugged her shoulders and prepared to turn the mare around, begining to think of a good excuse to explain for running out unexpectedly and coming home drenched in the middle of the night. Except, the mare wouldnt turn.

Suddenly tired and impatient, Bulma urged the mare on but to no avail. 'The damned horse wont move!' She nudged the horse on the sides, pulling at the reigns and trying unsuccessfully to head back home, until she saw it.

The horse had seen him, refusing to move until her master went further to investigate. Bulma hesitated, focusing on the point of where she spotted the stranger in her dreams. He lay unconcious in a deep pit, flooded with overgrown weeds and fallen branches. His hair matted with dried blood, the fallen dried leaves entangled in his firey hair.

" Oh dear God," Scrambling down from her saddle and carefully avoiding the jutting branches, Bulma approached the sunken pit with caution. " Uh... H-Hello?" Flicking back stray stands of hair behind her ear, she stood on the edge of the pit, looking down on the pathetic creature.

" Are you even alive down there?!" She yelled out, morbidly wondering wether this would end up being her first time she ever saw a dead man, or a dead body for that matter. " Oh geez, why do I have to....." She left off, too occupied to finish the sentence.

Looking around her, Bulma snapped off an offending branch from a nearby tree and freeing it of any stray leaves and reached over to the wounded and possibly dead man. She poked the stick into the appearently Samurai's arm, but to no response. Poking him in the head didnt do anything either, she noticed glumly.

Finally jutting him in the injured ribs, she jumped back suddenly and dropped the branch back in surprise when the man released a gurgled moan. " Oh crap! You ARE alive!" Looking down the pit, she realized something." Oh gosh, I REALLY dont want to go down there......" She whined.

Nevertheless, the courageous Bulma stepped ever so carefully into the densely filled pit next to him, refusing to retch when something wet and frigid stuck to her bare foot and seeped through between her toes.

Although Bulma knew the man from her dreams couldnt have been more than five inches taller than her, he weighed heavily and she had a tough time pulling him up from the entangled vines of the pit to setting him atop her mare. Soaked to the skin with rain and blood, Bulma reached into her discarded messenger bag and covered the Samurai with the dry blanket. Choosing to walk along beside the horse, Bulma kept an eye on the fragile breathing of her newly rescued victim, occasionally wiping away blood stains from his wounded temple.

"Hang on, my Samurai. We're almost home."